Lionel Tiger and Michael McGuire

Non-Fiction

Praise for God's Brain

"With economy, evidence, and no little wit and elegance, Lionel Tiger and Michael McGuire look for the answer to religion's ubiquity and persistence in the only place possible: the human brain. To say more would be to give away their answer, and that would spoil a great read and a serious and informative argument. This is easily the best book on the nature of religion to appear for a long time."

Robin Fox University Professor of Social Theory, Rutgers University

Either man could have published a book of this or some similar title and expected decent books sales and, likely, higher royalties, because he wouldn't have had to split them two ways. Readers are fortunate they did not do that. The joint effort is impressive. It manages to bring the experience and energy of both men together in one pithy, provocative package." Washington Times

"God's Brain is a welcome respite from the frenzied cacophony that too often attends discussions of religion."Blogcritics

God's Brain

At last count the world boasted approximately 4,200 distinct faith groups. Religion is a ritual, a soothing source of comfort, and, according to some, a crutch. Yet we cannot dismiss the staggering, galvanizing force that it plays in everyday lives and around the world.

All great faiths contain supernatural elements and we are all aware of the fateful stories that have been extolled for centuries: the Hebrew god dictating his laws to Moses, the celestial appearance of Allah to Muhammad, and the stories of Jesus’s teachings and miracles. These external, cosmic forces illuminate humankind and promise eternal award for earth-bound excellence. Yet, behind the eyes of these prophets and their believers is something internal that all humans share in common.

Taking a perspective rooted in evolutionary biology with a focus on brain science, renowned anthropologist Lionel Tiger and pioneering neuroscientist Michael McGuire—a primary discoverer of serotonin’s crucial role in brain chemistry—team up to explore the routine biological miracles that happen every day in your brain and possibly the most enduring legacy of humankind—religion. What is its purpose? How did it arise? What is its source? Why does every known culture have some form of it?

With wit and grace, the authors pick God’s brain and yours, discussing the latest research on religion’s neurological effects and its origins within the brain. They consider religion’s role in providing mind-melding socialization, its seemingly relentless obsession with regulating sex, its conceptions of an afterlife, its influence on law, and its connections between nonhuman primates and humans. They also demonstrate religion’s ability to help the brain adjust to stress and anxiety in lieu of modern-day drugs and therapy.

God’s Brain is an accessible, groundbreaking unveiling of the relationship between our divine passions and our neurological heritage.

Michael McGuire began his career as a psychiatrist at Harvard and MIT. He now studies nonhuman primates and their neurophysiology. He directed a behavior and neurophysiology research lab for investigators from Harvard, Yale, McGill, and UCLA for 18 years. Later, at UCLA he directed the Nonhuman Primate Laboratory and its associated biochemical laboratory. He is a pioneer in isolating many of the behavioral impacts of serotonin, norepinephrine, and cortisol which have had immense medical consequences. He lives in Cottonwood, California

Lionel Tiger identified male bonding in his 1969 bestseller, Men in Groups. InOptimism: The Biology of Hope, he analyzed the chronic knack humans have for overestimating the odds in our favor and neurochemistry which favors it. In 1971, with Robin Fox, he wrote The Imperial Animal. Other titles include The Pursuit of Pleasure, and Decline of Males.His articles have appeared in Playboy, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal,Harvard Business Review,, and Brain andBehavioral Science. He is Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers and he lives in New York City.